Oki Dub Ainu Band Japan Tour 07

Thursday, January 18, 2007 Posted: 10:02 AM JST

(by Jean Miyake Downey) - Oki and the Dub Ainu Band kick off this year's Japan tour in Kyoto on January 19 at the Metro, which describes their music as "roots music meets club sound."

They will play at Mo:Gla in Okayama on January 20, Sun Hall in Osaka on January 21, and Tokuzo in Nagoya on January 22.

On January 25, Oki will give a free live solo performance at the Apple Store in Shibuya.

The band will play together at Tokyo/Unit on January 26.

Then they return to Hokkaido to play at the Sapporo/Kraps Hall on January 28 and in Asahikawa at Casino Drive on January 30.

Schedule details are listed at the Oki Dub Ainu Band website In Japanese.

Oki, who internationally popularized the tonkori, the traditional Ainu stringed instrument, among world music followers, combines "upopo" Ainu chants with reggae and Afro beats. The band includes tonkori player and dancer Ikabe Futoshi, drummer Numazawa Takashi, and engineer Uchida Naoyuki, will go on an international tour after their Japan performances.

You can hear a 2005 interview with Oki, along with a clip from their most recent CD at Far Side Music:

The album we've been waiting for. OKI Dub Ainu Band have gained a reputation as one of Japan's most exciting live acts, after appearances at WOMAD, City of London Festivals, and other festivals throughout the world. While OKI had remixed some of his previous tracks on the excellent Dub Ainu albums, the band had never recorded together, until now. This album, is essentially the material play during their magnificent live shows. OKI's brittle, rhythmical, bass tonkori is combined with driving percussion, guitars, funky bass lines and some of the catchiest traditional melodies you've ever heard.

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Jean Miyake Downey is a contributing editor at the Kyoto Journal: Perspectives on Asia (www.kyotojournal.org), an award-winning English-language quarterly published in Kyoto, Japan. She covers multicultural and transnational issues. Drawing on her background as a sociologist and lawyer, she takes an interdisciplinary look at the nexuses between historical and contemporary hybridity and fusion; global cultural trauma and historical healing; the revival and survival of traditional and indigenous cultures; and global human rights movements.

Keywords: arts_entertainment culture_news

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